Just as there's no one way
of taking any kind of photograph, there are several different ways of
photographing animals. You can, for example, choose to do a portrait or
a close-up or portray the animal as part of the landscape. Browsing through
magazines and nature books reveals that portrait images are being published
in far greater numbers than pictures showing wildlife in its natural realm.
This is partly due to the fact that portraits offer a wider range of possibilities
to depict the animal, including details like eyes, face, paws, claws,
beaks, ears, fur patterns, and feathers, as well as the whole creature;
plus, with a portrait image, you can choose to depict a behavior pattern
of one or more subjects.

For a wildlife portrait, it's
important to focus on the main component of the image, which is, of course,
the animal itself, and leave out irrelevant factors. Also, it's wise to
create a uniform background, one without disturbances or distractions,
so that your subject is isolated from its surroundings.

Pelicans at dusk, Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge, California.
Shooting from a distance not only places the animals in
the context of their environment, but also prevents them
from being disturbed.

An image of wildlife as part
of the landscape is a different story altogether. In this case, the animal
must not be isolated from the background; on the contrary, the landscape,
as habitat and environment, should be sharply and prominently rendered--which,
due to the laws of optics, is not always a simple task. The use of long
lenses that are perfectly suited for portrait photography often presents
a problem because of limited depth of field. While this difficulty cannot
be completely eliminated, there are a few tricks to at least diminish
it.

You can, for instance, try
to carefully approach wildlife to a distance that allows the use of short
focal lengths, especially in locations where the animals are used to people,
like well-visited national parks. However, always keep in mind that even
if an animal can be safely and closely approached, the creature is often
still stressed by our presence. Examples are breeding birds which may
eventually desert their nests, or seemingly cuddly bears along roadsides
which can be dangerous when they feel disturbed by humans. Common sense
and respect for the well-being of the animal should always guide you during
any approach.

Oryx at the crest of a red sand dune at sunset, Namibian
desert. I used a 300mm lens and a 1.4 tele-converter. I
focused on the antelope and shot nearly wide-open.

Another way to sidestep the
depth of field problem is by photographing down from an elevation like
a mountain, cliff, building, or tree. The steeper the angle from which
you shoot downward onto an object, the less you have to close down the
aperture to achieve sharpness of all elements in the picture.

Photography with long focal
lengths gets easier if the wildlife is located in the far distance and
you can focus near the infinity mark on the lens. In this case, too, not
much closing down of the aperture is necessary for sufficient sharpness
of the overall image. A disturbing foreground has to be avoided, though.
For this reason such shots are mostly limited to mountainous landscapes
or dunes that allow photography from higher elevations. The greater the
focal length of the lens, the more the image loses in depth. The results
are often "flat" images that are, unless properly composed, boring to
the eye.

For the image of the oryx on
the sand dune I used a 300mm lens with a 1.4 tele-converter and focused
on the antelope with a nearly fully opened aperture. Because I was standing
on a dune crest I could avoid a disturbing out of focus foreground. Due
to the considerable distance of the subject, the two dune crests in the
background are also sufficiently sharp.

Keep in mind that it's not
always necessary to sharply depict the surroundings of the animal, especially
if the landscape is simply structured, like a large expanse of water,
a wide and barren plain, rock walls, or a distant mountain range. In these
cases, and generally in photographs of wildlife in landscapes, the off-center
placement of the animal or animals is important. The challenge of positioning
your main subject becomes easier if you divide the frame by two horizontal
and two vertical lines into nine even rectangles and place your central
subject on one of the intersections. In the photograph of the pelicans,
this technique resulted in the pelicans appearing right in the strip of
light, and that, along with the various gray tones of sky and water, lends
an appealing horizontal structure to the picture. The soft, watery surroundings
guide the view to the pelicans, which are the main subjects, while at
the same time their environment remains sufficiently recognizable.

Animals in landscapes should
not become objects you have to search for in a picture, unless the idea
is to emphasize a specific characteristic of the creature such as camouflage
or hiding. In order to highlight an animal, try to avoid disturbing backgrounds,
and when you're photographing groups of silhouetted wildlife in backlight
conditions, it's important that single animals in the group remain identifiable;
too much overlap will often create a chaotic image.

Finally, if an animal is featured
sideways in the frame, it's almost always preferable to place the greater
part of the landscape in front of the animal, not behind it; in other
words, always let the subject look into the picture.

Of course, these tips leave
plenty of room for your own creativity and imagination to come into play
to compose strong images of animals in the landscape.